"Other languages, other landscapes, other stories": Reading Resurgence in the Contemporary Indigenous Novel

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisorLily M Cho
dc.contributor.authorVanessa Kimberley Evans
dc.date.accessioned2023-08-04T15:23:28Z
dc.date.available2023-08-04T15:23:28Z
dc.date.issued2023-08-04
dc.date.updated2023-08-04T15:23:27Z
dc.degree.disciplineEnglish
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractAs settler and postcolonial countries in North America, Oceania, and South Asia contend with the complexity of reconciliation, sovereignty movements, and the fallout from colonial schools, the relevance of Indigenous resurgence is rising on a global scale. This resurgence responds, in part, to the specific role literature can and has played in disconnecting Indigenous Peoples from their knowledges, communities, and selves. Accordingly, in this dissertation I make connections between seemingly disparate Indigenous novels in an effort at beginning to understand what representations of resurgence—the everyday practices and processes that seek to regenerate and rebuild Indigenous nations—reveal about how diverse Indigenous contexts are (re)imagining Indigenous worlds and what connections across those contexts might mean (Simpson 2017). To perform this investigation, I make a case for further cross-cultural comparative methods within Indigenous literary studies that can interpret resurgence across distinct literary contexts while maintaining a commitment to nation-specific worldviews imparted by relation with land. Mobilizing the theoretical work of Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg), Chadwick Allen, and Molly McGlennen (Anishinaabe), this project contributes a new comparative method called reading resurgence. Located at the intersection of global and nationalist approaches to Indigenous literary studies, this method interprets everyday acts of resurgence—specifically: storytelling, language learning, and relationship with land—trans-Indigenously across three respective literary constellations of coresistance that cluster novels from diverse Indigenous nations. The first constellation reads resurgence across David Treuer’s (Leech Lake Ojibwe) The Translation of Dr Apelles (2006), Patricia Grace’s (Māori) Potiki (1986), and Rejina Marandi’s (Santal) Becoming Me (2014). The second clusters Cherie Dimaline’s (Métis) The Marrow Thieves (2017), Sia Figiel’s (Samoan) Where We Once Belonged (1996), and Easterine Kire’s (Angami Naga) Don’t Run, My Love (2017). The third reads across Eden Robinson’s (Haisla & Heiltsuk) Monkey Beach (2000), Kiana Davenport’s (Kanaka Maoli) Shark Dialogues (1994), and Mamang Dai’s (Adi) The Black Hill (2014). Beyond its methodological contribution, this dissertation is also an effort to advance scholarly understandings of how contemporary Indigenous novels are (re)connecting Indigenous Peoples and nations with traditional ways of being and knowing.
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10315/41405
dc.languageen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subjectLiterature
dc.subjectNative American studies
dc.subject.keywordsIndigenous literatures
dc.subject.keywordsNative American literature
dc.subject.keywordsFirst Nations literature
dc.subject.keywordsMetis literature
dc.subject.keywordsEnglish literature
dc.subject.keywordsresurgence
dc.subject.keywordsAmerican Indian literature
dc.subject.keywordsIndigenous studies
dc.subject.keywordsworld literature
dc.subject.keywordstrans-Indigenous
dc.subject.keywordsglobal Indigenous literary study
dc.subject.keywordscontemporary literature
dc.subject.keywordsdecolonization
dc.title"Other languages, other landscapes, other stories": Reading Resurgence in the Contemporary Indigenous Novel
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Evans_Vanessa_K_2023_PhD.pdf
Size:
1.46 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download

Collections

ETD SWORD Deposit

All items in the YorkSpace institutional repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved except where explicitly noted.